HINDUISM
Pope
John Paul II has given the Church’s position on other world religions when he
taught that “The Church gladly acknowledges whatever is true and holy in the
religious traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam as a reflection of that
truth which enlightens all men
(John 1:9), but that this does not lessen her duty and resolve to
proclaim without fail Jesus Christ, who is “the way, the truth and the life”
(Jn. 14: ). The Church wishes all men to be saved and to
come to the knowledge of the truth. For
there is one mediator between God and Men, Christ Jesus who gave himself
as a ransom for all (1 Tim. 2:4-5), and there is no other name under heaven by
which we can be saved than the name of Jesus” (Acts 4:12).
Speaking the Truth: In her statement on Missionary Activity (No.
5), the Church implores its members to “behave yourselves honourably among the
Pagans” (Pet. 2:12), to ‘do all you can to live at peace with everyone’ (Rom.
12:18), but also to “be ready at all times to answer who asks you to explain
the hope you have in you, but to do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Pet.
3:15). In other words, to always be
prepared to explain your faith to all who ask and not be a wimp, “to speak the
truth in love”. (Eph. 4:15)
Justin Martyr: The great Christian convert and philosopher,
St. Justin Martyr, who was born in Palestine whilst St. John the apostle was
still alive, attributed all the truths in non-Christian religions to the Word
of God who enlightens every person coming into this world. (Jn. 1:9)
He said: That “there seems to be seeds of truth among all people”.
(Apology XLIV)
C.S. Lewis: Following in this tradition was the great
Christian apologist of the Twentieth Century – C.S. Lewis. He believed that pagan myths or ‘Good Dreams”
are one of the ways God reveals Himself to mankind. Scattered throughout human history are
archetypal patterns, stories, rituals, myths and religious motifs “about a God
who dies and comes to life again by his death, has somehow given new life to
man”.
In
Hinduism, the God Prajapathy was without sin, he was sacrificed, died and rose
again.
In
the Old Testament, God revealed to the idol worshipping Pharaoh by ‘good
dreams’ what He was going to do. (Gen.
41:25)
The Ape of God: Some Christians have seen pagan myths and
stories as the work of demons and as a counterfeit for confusing mankind. But for C.S. Lewis, pagan myths and stories
are a dim foreshadowing of God’s supreme, final revelation in Christ.
The
Indian writer and scholar of Hinduism, Jose Pereira, has translated the Hindu
holy books of Vedas into English, and is the editor of HINDU THEOLOGY : A
READER (Doubleday). He believes that
“within Hinduism, there is a preparation for the Gospel which is extraordinary
in its theological and spiritual depth.
Indeed, Vatican II openly acknowledges that “in Hinduism men contemplate
the divine mystery”. Moreover, it was in
Hinduism that some mysteries, which Christian theology recognizes as wholly
supernatural, were first enunciated. In
the ancient Hindu writings we find the concept of the mysterious plurality of
beings in the unique and transcendent being of God, the assumption by this
being of creaturely form (the incarnation); the intimate personal union with
this being as constituting man’s supreme happiness (The Beatific Vision); and
the un-attainability of that Being except through his favour (grace)”. (Crises/March ’91; 25)
Idols: The Bible is very firm on that there is only
one God and warns of the danger of idolatry.
But for Hinduism there are millions of gods (some say 330 million
gods). However, this was not always the
case.
Early Indian Monotheism: Boaz Johnson shows that the pre-vedic period in India (Pre
1500 B.C.) God, or Brahman, was defined as Saguna Brahman, or the God who is
full of personality and attributes.
Scholars of Indian philosophy regard this to be the period of Monotheism
(one God) as opposed to the present situation of many gods (polytheism). In this period, Brahman was regarded as the
only true God. This God had several
names. He was called Dyaus Pitr, The
Heavenly Father. He was called
Prajapathy, the Lord of Creation. He was
called Purusha, or the Eternal man who becomes incarnate for the salvation of
humanity. This God, Brahman, was regarded
as the Creator, he was present everywhere and was all-knowing. He was holy and detested sin and demanded
holiness from people.
At
this period, when the evil died, they were believed to go to ‘the house of
clay’. When the good died, they went to
the world of the Pitr (Father). This
clearly was a monotheism Christians could identify with. Unfortunately this situation was not to last
long because in the post-1500 B.C. period, India became very polytheistic with
many nature gods and Brahman was transformed from a personal God to an
impersonal one who had no personality.
God was no longer a ‘He’ but an ‘it’.
Indian Philosophy: Shankara, the Eighth Century B.C. Indian
philosopher, adopted this definition of Brahman and espoused monism : The
doctrine that only one ultimate principle of being exists; a theory denying the
duality of matter and mind – all is one and we are all God. Even good and evil are the same!
With
the adoption of polytheism and the adoption of this monistic philosophy, an
unbridgeable gulf opened up between Hinduism and Biblical Religion, and this is
the situation today. It also led to
Indian philosophy being dismissed as no philosophy al all by the great German
philosopher, Hegel. H. Van Straelen
points out that the cosmology (Science of the Universe) and theology of monism
denies the Principle of Contradiction which states that a thing cannot
be and not be at the same time.
This
monistic philosophy is ignored in many Universities in India which teach the
western philosophical view of reality as being more realistic.
It
is ironic that Hinduism today is perceived as being inherently monistic
because, as the influential Indian writer, R.A. Varghese, shows in his work The
Wonder of the World, five out of six schools of Hinduism are not
monistic and that the monist strain of Hinduism came from the thousand-year
reign of world-denying Buddhism in India.
Varghese shows the historical importance of the great Indian
philosopher, Madhva (1238-1317 A.D.), and his tremendous zeal for travelling
India, contradicting Buddhist errors and promoting Theism.
Many Contradictions: Professor Heinrich von Stietencron writes of
“the multiform nature and inner contradictoriness of Hinduism;
“within
Hinduism, one person’s sacred scripture is by no means necessarily someone
else’s.
This
individual may assign a minor role to a god whom another individual worships
with deep devotion as the supreme divinity and Lord of the world. One man teaches that living creatures should
never be harmed, while another man’s altar drips with the blood of sacrificed
goats and buffaloes. One believer’s
Tantric practices are an abomination to others.
Even the doctrine of reincarnation, which we think of as being so
closely linked with Hinduism, is not a universally accepted part of Hindu
teaching and faith.
Hinduism
is not one religion, but a collection of different Indian religions found on
the Indian subcontinent. “No Indian
religion ever called itself ‘Hinduism’, a word invented by Europeans” (H. Von
Stietencorn). Under the word ‘Hinduism’
some Indians even include Buddhism, Jains and Sikhs. This would help to explain all the
contradictions in ‘Hinduism’”.
THE BIBLE ON IDOLATRY: The Bible is very insistent on the evil of
idolatry: “do not bow down to any idol or worship it, because I am the Lord
your God, and I tolerate no rivals”.
(Exodus 20) “Pagan idols are
silver and gold, the work of human hands.
They have mouths but they cannot speak: they have ears but they cannot
hear. There is never a breath on their
lips. Their makers will come to be like
them and so will all who trust in them!
(Psalm 135:15-18).
“All
those who make idols are worthless, and the gods they prize so highly are
useless. Those who worship these gods
are blind and ignorant – and they will be disgraced. It is no good making a metal image to worship
as a god! A man uses part of a tree for
fuel and part of it for making an idol.
With one part he builds a fire to warm himself and bake bread; with the
other part he makes a god and worships it...
The rest of the wood he makes into an idol, and then he bows down and
worships it! He prays to it and says,
‘You are my god – save me!!’” (Isaiah 44)
St.
Paul calls on the Greeks: ‘Turn away from idols and worship the living and true
God’.
(1
Thes. 1:9)
The
Universe, Sunday July 13, 2003
Only one Saviour, Pope
tells India:
The
Pope has told India’s bishops to step up their missionary efforts without downplaying
Jesus’ uniqueness as the incarnate son of God.
Speaking
to bishops during their five-yearly ad
limina visit to Rome, the Holy father applauded their missionary efforts
which he said were having very encouraging results, but told them Christianity
separated from the proclamation of Jesus as the only Saviour “is no longer
Christian”. The question of the Church’s
evangelization efforts in India, a country steeped in ancient religious and
philosophical traditions, has been a sensitive subject of debate in recent
years.
Some
local church leaders and theologians have rejected traditional missionary
efforts as disrespectful to the ancient religions and God’s ability to save
people through them. But the Pope told
the bishops that especially in the Indian context “we see how absolutely
essential is the proclamation of Jesus Christ as the son of God. Any theology of mission that omits the call
to a radical conversion to Christ and denies the cultural transformation that
such conversion will entail necessarily misrepresents the reality of our
faith”.
Selected Sources:
♦ Vatican
II Documents.
♦ M.J.
Christensen, C.S. Lewis on Scripture, Abingdon Press, Nashville 1979.
♦ Boaz
Johnson in Mishkan Issue 38/2003.
♦ H.
Von Stietencorn, in Christianity and the World Religions, Doubleday,
N.Y.
1986.
♦ R.A. Verghese, The Wonder of the
World : a Journey from Modern Science to the Mind of God, Tyr Publishing,
Arizona.
WORLD RELIGIONS : HINDUISM
Appendix
on Reincarnation
Mahatma
Gandhi called reincarnation and karma ‘a burden too great to bear’.
REINCARNATION: “The belief that the souls of all living
beings, animals, men and even gods are subject to a perpetual cycle of
rebirth. The condition of a soul in this
life is determined by its action in the past...
The purpose of life is to realize the unreality of the world of becoming
and to attain liberation in the world of Absolute Being. This doctrine, common to Hinduism, Buddhism,
and Jainism, gradually spread from India to the West”. (NCE v. 12)
The
relation between mind-altering techniques and memory of so-called past-life
experiences must be considered. The
unconscious mind, it seems, is a vast repository of facts and figures, and
forgets absolutely nothing. The Canadian
neurosurgeon, Dr. Wilder Penfield, by inserting electrodes into a
patient’s temporal lobe, witnessed patients suddenly relive a complete moment
from earlier in their lives as if a moving picture was being run in front of
them. It seems that every fact of
history, novel, play, character study and snatch of conversation we have heard
is stored away in our unconscious mind.
Near-Death
Experience:
Research
into near-death experiences have shown that people faced with this experience
often rerun in their own minds every single item from their past in incredible
details. Drugs, as well as mind-altering
meditation techniques, can have the same effect and lead to the illusion of
having had past lives and of being reincarnated in this one. For example, a newspaper reported that at a
Christmas party in London a student laced mince pied with mind-bending drugs
like cannabis and LSD, which led to one woman going on a trip back into a past
life as she drove home. It was dark, but
to her amazement it was a summer’s evening back in the 18th
century. She saw what she believed to be
real people lighting street lamps and horse-drawn carriages passing. (Natal Mercury, 31/7/87)
Meditation:
Mind-altering
Hindu or Buddhist meditation techniques have probably triggered the minds of
many religious adherents to remember unconscious material and think it was due
to having lived in previous incarnations.
This could have led to the doctrine of reincarnation in Hindu/Buddhist
theology. People today, triggering off
the same experiences by various techniques and use of drugs like LSD can
cannabis, may believe that they too have had previous incarnations, and this
has led to the widespread belief in reincarnation.
The
Demonic:
Of
course, the demonic cannot be overlooked.
These visions can be produced by the action of evil spirits. The Scriptures warn us against deceitful
spirits and false visions (1 Tim. 4: 11; 2 Thes. 2:9; Zec. 10:2), and Christian
writers down the ages assure us that evil spirits have such historical knowledge
that they can draw upon to deceive us.
Of course drug abuse can weaken the will and provide an opening for
demonic activity.
Ian
Wilson:
In
one of the most exhaustive studies to date into the claims of reincarnation,
the Oxford historian, Professor Ian Wilson, in his book Mind Out Of Time :
Reincarnation Claims Investigated (London, Gollancz, 1981) says that
reincarnation claims may be due to “a stress induced amalgam of unconsciously
remembered reading or listening” (p.242).
One person “must have acquired her knowledge from some perfectly
ordinary 20th century source such as a book, a magazine article, a
radio or television drama”. (p.204)
ALTERED STATES:
“...
theoretically, there seems every probability that all our experiences, every
book, newspaper, comic or annual we have read or had read to us, every speech
and sermon we may have nodded through, every snatch of conversation on which we
may have eavesdropped, every magazine story we might have glanced at in a
crowded waiting room, every radio programme that might have blared at us unwanted
from a neighbour’s transistor as we dozed on a holiday beach, lie somewhere in
the extraordinary repository we call the unconscious mind. And no man has contributed more to what we so
far understand of this than a brilliant, yet modest, and publicly almost
unknown Canadian neurosurgeon, Dr. Wilder Penfield. (d. 1976).... To his astonishment, one patient suddenly
began reliving a complete moment from earlier in his life just as if a moving
picture was being re-run in front of him” (when Penfield inserted an electrode
into the patient’s temporal lobe). (p.116)
Dr.
Michelle Clements of the City of London Maternity Hospital, has recently
demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the fetus not only hears stimuli
external to the womb, such as music, as early as 4 months after conception but
also reacts to these and unconsciously memorizes them.
Independently,
Dr. Carl Sagan has argued that a considerable portion of a fetus’s uterine
existence is spent in dreams, dreams which can scarcely derive from the fetus’s
own life experiences. It is but a short
step to the view that during pregnancy a mother’s mental traumas of whatever
origin, may be unconsciously transmitted to the unborn child, so that the child
subsequently takes on what is merely the illusion of past life memories by
identifying itself with the victim of the traumas” (the mother). (p.62)
